Matthew Slater

(Composer / Producer / Music Preparation and Orchestration)

Matthew Slater's career has spanned many genres of music, bringing a wide and varied mix to his compositional style. With his love of music deeply set in the world of film and classical music, he brings an eclectic mix of styles to use within any type of production with professional and original results, often combining technology with the art of traditional orchestration.

Matthew is currently scoring Love In Numbers for Touch Productions / TLC. The 60 minute documentary on the extraordinary science and statistics surrounding love, romance and relationships is produced by Karen Plumb and the programme is scheduled for worldwide transmission early in 2010.

After studying piano, conducting and composition at college, Matthew went on to work with film composer and BAFTA Award-Winner Barrington Pheloung as Orchestrator and Music Assistant. This saw Matthew working on a wide range of television, film and theatre productions including:

Anand Tucker’s Red Riding 1983 (starring David Morrissey, Mark Addy and Sean Bean) for Revolution Films / Channel 4, And When Did You Last See Your Father? (starring Colin Firth and Jim Broadbent) for Number 9 Films and FilmFour and Tucker’s Hilary and Jackie (starring Emily Watson and Rachel Griffiths) for October Films / BBC. Sharon Maguire’s Incendiary (starring Ewan McGregor and Michelle Williams) for FilmFour and Capitol Films, ITV1’s Inspector Morse (starring John Thaw and Kevin Whately) and now the spin-off series Lewis (starring Kevin Whately and Laurence Fox), Mamma Mia the Westend stage production written by Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson and BBC’s Dalziel & Pascoe (starring Warren Clarke and Colin Buchanan).

Four years after starting working with Barrington, Matthew gained a music publishing deal with Warner Chappell and went on to write music for everything from TV advertising to dance floor club tracks to contemporary chamber music. Matthew's work in the dance industry earned him numerous licensing deals including:

Clubbers Guide To Trance - Ministry Of Sound (Mixed by ATB), The Awakening - Renaissance Records (Mixed by David Seaman) and Reykjavik - Global Underground (Mixed by Nick Warren). Premiere DJ support of Matthew's dance music was evident with the likes of John Digweed, Sasha, Paul Oakenfold and Nick Warren regularly playing Matthew's music. Radio plays have inluded BBC Radio 1, Virgin Radio and Kiss FM along with many international radio stations.

Matthew has also scored and conducted orchestral arrangements on Connie Talbot's debut album. This work went on to earn Matthew a BPI Gold Disc in recognition for his contribution to the success of the album.

He recently worked with Grammy Award-Winning music producer Steve McLaughlin on the film White Light that saw Matthew lending his orchestration and music preparation skills. Steve has produced, recorded and mixed the scores for over 90 major feature films including the Die Hard series, the Lethal Weapon series and the Academy Award nominated scores for Interview With A Vampire and Michael Collins. Steve was also the architect and producer of Badly Drawn Boy’s highly regarded score for Chris and Paul Weitz ’s About A Boy. For over 15 years, Steve was the producer of the respected film composer Michael Kamen. Steve produced Kamen’s score for Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves and the soundtrack album went on to sell over 3.5 million copies.

Aside from film & television work Matthew was commissioned to produce an installation piece with the Royal Philharmonic Society, Classic FM, BBC Radio 3 and Imperial War Museum commemorating the 90th anniversary of the end of the First World War.

Matthew's love of chamber music has also seen him commissioned to compose four string quartets by the internationally recognised Solaris Quartet.

Composition Discography

Feature Films: Cold Fish

Short Films: Bro (BAFTA Screening), Somewhere Anywhere, The Breman Rejects, Happy Birthday, Waiting, Semi-Automatic, Butterflies, That Time Of Day, Smile Emily, Underground.

Chamber Music: String Quartet No.4, Bach 2 The Future (solo cello), String Quartet No.3, Call To War (for Tenor and String Quartet), String Quartet No.2, String Quartet No.1, Lampoon For Tuba (Piano and Violin).

TV Advertising: Iceland (ITV).

Dance (Original Compositions): Nova Scotia, Sumo Of Your Fears, Insatiable Minds, Tyranny, Solar Guerrilla, Focus On You, Awakenings, Lacuna, Circadian Rhythms, Hypertonic, Nexus / Cosmonautic, Bias, Amulet / Totality, Implode / Autonomy.

Dance (Commissioned Remixes): Duran Duran's Ordinary World (Positive Records), Gull (Stonehouse Records), Perceptions Cass'n'Slide (Additive Records).

Orchestral Production (on Commercially available albums/singles): Home, Hoppipola, Connie Talbot, Ryandan: High, Ordinary Day, Porra Vita, Heartbreak, Unbreak My Heart, Lonely, Heaven.

Official Football Albums (Sanctuary Group): Liverpool, Celtic (Na Na Celtic), Manchester City (Na Na City), Arsenal (We've Got Dennis Bergkamp).

Binaural Music Albums: Stress Reduction and Relaxation Album.

Music Preparation and Orchestration

Feature Films: Prince Caspian: Chronicles Of Narnia, Inkheart, White Light, Machen, Incendiary, And When Did You Last See Your Father?, Hilary and Jackie, The Gift, Neville's Island.

Television: Red Riding 1983 (which will also be released theatrically), Lewis (Allegory Of Love, Quality Of Mercy, The Point Of Vanishing, Counter Culture Blues, The Great And The Good, Life Born Of Fire, Music To Die For, And The Moonbeams Kiss The Sea, Expiation), Inspector Morse (The Remorseful Day, The Wench Is Dead, Death Is Now My Neighbour, The Daughters of Cain), Dalziel & Pascoe (The Wood Beyond, Bones and Silence, Child's Play, Under World, Exit Lines, Deadheads, A Killing Kindness, Ruling Passion), Mosley, Modern Times (The Power and the Glory).

Albums: Clay Aiken

Computer Games: Broken Sword II: The Smoking Mirror, Broken Sword: The Shadow Of The Templars.

For further information on Matthew please visit his site on: www.matthewslater.com

Awards

BPI Gold Disc for Connie Talbot's Album

Some sample music clips below (please click on the play symbol):

For a full length showreel, please contact DNA.

For further information, visit: www.matthewslater.com

Testimonials

"I have worked with Matthew Slater for a period of over thirteen years. He has been my studio manager whose technical / musical knowledge is second to none, and he continues in that capacity, to be invaluable to me in the production of all my scores for media, and concert works, operas, etc.

His extraordinary score and part preparation is, at once painstaking and methodical (we must have worked on at least 100 music scores together to date); and astonishingly the fastest and most efficient - much needed in this industry of increasingly unrealistic deadlines!

Even down to such detailed effort as page turns for both myself as conductor, and the player parts as well, I have never worked with anyone else as reliable, skillful or helpful in this industry.

Apart from all that, he is also a friendly and affable personality - which is very helpful during the inevitable "small hours".

I could not recommend Matthew more to any of my colleagues on all his capacities as a musician, (he has played on many of my film & TV soundtracks) as a studio technical/music assistnat, and in score preparation and orchestration assistance"

Barrington Pheloung (Composer)

"I asked Matt to help me work on a film score where we had a lot of fairly big orchestral action music to do with a restricted budget. Matt's contribution included orchestrating cues as part of a team of orchestrators, and being in charge of preparing paper for the orchestra.

We recorded at Air Lyndhurst with an orchestra of 50/60. In order to get a lot of music recorded with that size of orchestra, as a producer I demand a great deal of accuracy and preparation from the music team. Matt's work was first class. The paper was very well prepared, the session was very successful, and best of all from my point of view, Matt's ability to understand what was required and deliver it without a lot of input from myself and the composer left us more time to concentrate on getting the performances right.

Matt's enthusiasm for his work is also contagious, he brought a lot to that project, and I would not hesitate in recommending him"

Steve McLaughlin (Music Producer)

"Matthew Slater has been known to me for a considerable number of years mainly through his work with composer Barrington Pheloung for the Inspector Morse films and more recently the Lewis series.

I have always found his music copying to be of the highest standard notwithstanding the last minute and high pressure demands this vital job invariably entails. His work is always delivered with good humour and in a relaxed manner and I have been encouraged to see that Matthew's work is being increasingly recognised by other composers and producers in the UK music profession"

Andy Brown (MD, London Metropolitan Orchestra)

Recording Love In Numbers at Angel Studios

Photography by Tim Shipston

Paul Golding (Engineer) and Matthew Slater

Recording Red Riding 1983 at Abbey Road Studios

Matthew and Dave Heath (cello)